The lights in our family room are horrible. It's not our fault, the house came that way, honest! As it currently stands, the primary lights for the room are cast by: our tiny little table lamp with a single 40-watt bulb; from the television; and from two massive flood/spotlights in ceiling recessed fixtures. Not the most effective lighting I've ever seen, but at least those flood lights give the four-legged kids a good spotlight to fight under when they're having a moment.

The two large 6" spotlight recessed flood lamps, when not burned out, provide just enough illumination to make everything look hideous, and enough heat to bake a batch of cookies. But right now, yep you guessed it, they're both burned out. This has left us with a less than desirable lighting scenario.

The last thing we want is to have a gaggle of people coming through our house this weekend for the home tour and saying "That house was so small compared to the other houses!" Oh wait, that's the truth and we can't avoid that one bit. What we really want to avoid is to have someone say "The house was nice, except for that one really dark room in the middle." To remedy this situation, I have a plan.

I've longed for more efficient and better looking lights in this room. Is that too much to ask? Additionally, I would LOVE to have light bulbs that don't sound like a swarm of bees has entered the room when they're dimmed to 50%. Am I selfish? Given the current recessed fixtures look like this, I'm going to have to say my feelings are well founded.


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Comments 18

Just like with your hairstyle or wardrobe, decorating a Christmas tree can be an outward display of your style and taste. Whether you showcase special handmade ornaments from your children, go all out with a specific theme or color, or present an eclectic mix of carefully collected ornaments, you're making a statement and telling a story. 

What does our Christmas tree say about us? Well, for starters, it's pretty clear we're both Type A. If you're not a handblown painted glass ornament, you're not coming to the tree trimming party in our house. Sad, but true. This method of decorating is something Alex's Mom passed down to him, and this family tradition was near and dear to his heart. Therefore when we bought our first tree together back in 2000, we set out to follow suit.

Over the years we've collected hundreds of these ornaments, and especially like to seek them out as treasured souvenirs on our travels. This week, when we decorated our tree in anticipation of this weekend's Holiday Designer Tour of Homes, we took a trip down memory lane as we unpacked box after box of our beloved keepsakes. 


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Comments 13

This is the story of a chair. It's not just any chair, it's a special chair. No, it won't fly us around the room, it won't grant us wishes, and it won't run errands or do chores for us, no matter how nicely we ask. But if it won't do any of that, then how is it special? Well, this chair is a time machine of sorts. The chair I'm speaking of is Wendy's great grandfather's rectory chair.

As children of families with deep heritage and histories, we both know stories and have knowledge of our lineage. Neither of us are from any sort of famous, powerful, or particularly wealthy families, and both of our families represent an eclectic mix of hard working individuals. The various sides of our families' roots in the United States were established anywhere from the industrial revolution to the Revolutionary War, all depending on the branch of our respective trees. But no matter the situation, each of our families came here with little, in hopes of providing more for their loved ones. For this very reason, antiques, keepsakes, and heirloom pieces passed from generation to generation are rare and treasured.

As a young girl, Wendy remembers this old, dirty, and wobbly chair sitting in her parents' basement. As the story goes, this chair once sat in a church rectory, and somehow ended up in her great grandfather's possession. Dark and splintered wood, worn with age and use, faded and torn fabric seat, and tattered burlap seat straps did little to tell the story of the possibly rich history the chair possesses. Instead, its current condition acted as more of a footnote to its largely unknown legend.

As a child, Wendy was unaware of the chair's eventual meaning to her. She always knew it was her great grandfather's chair, but figured it was a lost cause from a furniture or seating standpoint and was only being held onto for some sentimental purposes.


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Comments 22

It’s the most wonderful time of the year, right? There’s certainly something magical about the Christmas season. Drinking hot cocoa on a chilly winter morning, making snow angels (assuming you get a snowfall), and celebrating traditions with family and friends go down in my book as cherished activities that I look forward to each year. On the flip side, battling mall traffic in search of the perfect gift for those on your list can be a stressful undertaking.

Actual Black Friday stressful mayhem - no thanks!

Today, we aim to take just a little bit of the stress out of the decisions you need to make by suggesting a few items that we like and work quite well for us.

If you’re a consistent reader of Old Town Home, you may be familiar with our Toolbox Tuesday section – posts that offer a frank review of some of our favorite tools and home improvement items with which we have firsthand experience. So, if you have a handyman (or woman) on your list who would love to expand their arsenal of DIY must haves, here’s a list of our favorite tools that we've covered in some capacity here on Old Town Home.

There are a handful of small and inexpensive tools and items that are absolute must haves when tackling just about any level of DIY. These tools make excellent stocking stuffers and may be just what the gift doctor ordered to get someone's renovation heart pumping.


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Comments 6

One of the aspects of DIY home projects I feel I've become particularly adept at in recent years is my ability to build out of necessity. When in a pinch, such as when we have company coming in from out of town, or when we've been invited to put our house on a Christmas Designer home tour (oh, you say we've mentioned this particular scenario recently...weird), sometimes you've just got to "git 'r done." Well, we've been doing a lot of that lately, so I guess it's a good thing I'm feeling confident in my abilities.

Our old wicker bench in the sun porch of years past was a nostalgia piece of furniture. We purchased it almost immediately upon our arrival in DC and placed it on our apartment's balcony. Since then it's been a versatile piece and a constant in our lives. Mel has used it extensively, as has Lulu. And Ollie? Well, Ollie chewed it all to hell leaving the front rather ragged, but I'll say he loved it too. (He also liked to pulled the shoes out of the baskets under the bench.)

For all of its sentimental reminders, it was definitely past its prime, and it was also far from looking particularly good. That's why we'll go ahead and use "nostalgia" as the excuse for why we kept it in our sun porch for nearly a decade.

With the recent purchase of new chairs for the sun porch, it was finally time to bid a fond farewell to this ragged piece of furniture. My father in law and I recently took this wicker bench to its new temporary home at a local charity.


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Comments 10
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